


a father (a hero)

by nitrogenoxygen



Series: shitty post-endgame sadness [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Irondad, Morgan Stark-centric, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 08:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitrogenoxygen/pseuds/nitrogenoxygen
Summary: AVENGERS ENDGAME SPOILERSMorgan hoards these little crumbs of information like they are priceless artefacts. To her, they are.





	a father (a hero)

**Author's Note:**

> look i know this sucks but i was in the Mood for writing and decided to write about poor morgan having to grow up without her dad :( fuck why do i insist on making myself sad all the goddamn time ]
> 
> i love you 3000 @ everyone who reads this

Morgan Stark is four years old, staring at her mother with confused brown eyes (her father's eyes). She is young, optimistic, so full of life and joy. Her parents had always tried to be honest with her about Thanos, the Snap, and everything that had happened, but she was four years old. Death was still a mystery, a cloaked figure far away in the distance. She is four, and the world crashes down.

"What do you mean Papa isn't coming home?" She turns her head from side to side, seeking out her papa's familiar figure. Any minute now she'll see him step out from his hiding place and attack her with tickles, beard brushing against her soft cheek as he drops fond kisses on her face. He'll be laughing, lips stretched into a wide smile as he tucked a few stray brown strands behind her ear and picked her up, resting her against his side. 

"Morgan," her mama says, but she stumbles to her feet and sprints past her, flinging open the door. 

"PAPA!" she screams into the air, as loud as she can go. "PAPA, WHERE ARE YOU?"

Morgan trips down the stairs and clumsily braces herself with her hands on the damp grass. Her mama rushes to her side instantly and crouches down, hand resting on her back and tracing soothing circles. She picks her up gently, but Morgan flails and struggles, feebly pounding her small fists against her mother's back.

"Papa isn't coming home, sweetie," Pepper whispers, hugging her daughter as tight as she can. "Papa...he beat the bad guys, Morgan, but he's really, really tired. So he's gonna rest now."

Morgan sobs and presses her face into her mother's silky orange hair. "I don't care," she wailed, voice muffled. "I want Papa back."

Pepper sucks in a harsh breath and uses her free hand to wipe away the fresh tears. "So do I, darling," she murmurs, chest tight. "So do I."

Morgan Stark is four years old, and her father is never coming back.

* * *

She is still four years old, staring at her father who isn't her father. It's Papa, but he looks strange. He isn't colourful anymore, and when she reaches out a shaking arm to try and touch him, it goes straight through. But he sounds like Papa, and he looks like Papa. He's talking, but she can only understand some of it. Everyone else seems to understand, though. She curls up on the couch and presses herself into her mama's side, watching as Not-Papa talks and smiles and does everything Real-Papa should be doing.

"I love you 3000," Papa says, and then vanishes. Morgan feels something inside her break. 

"I love you 3000 too, Papa," she whispers.

Mama said he'd gone to sleep. She hopes he can hear her while he's dreaming.

* * *

Tony Stark is dead, but the world keeps on turning and turning without him. It seems almost unfair, that life can continue so easily after he's gone. 

Morgan Stark grows up. She's no longer four years old, and she'd lost her childhood innocence long ago.

* * *

Sometimes, she feels like she's forgetting him.

Memories made at four and younger are almost never going to stick around, but she clings to them like they are what keeps her heart beating. The smaller details, however, seem to slip through her fingers, lost into the void of the unknown. Things like the feeling of his hand smoothing down and carding through her hair. Things like the exact shape and curve of his smile. Things like the pitch of his laugh. It feels like she's losing him all over again, piece by broken piece until all that will be left of him are the pictures and the stories.

And oh, there are so many stories. Uncle Rhodey describes to her Papa's university antics with fond nostalgia and sadness in his eyes, laughing as he tells her about all of the experiments that had gone wrong in some way, all the times he'd corrected professors and accidentally shown them up. Uncle Happy divulges less information, but occasionally he'll let slip a few tidbits, like Papa teasing him about his obsession with badges, the easy banter between them despite technically being boss and employee. Peter, her beloved Spider-Brother, shares with her their time in the lab, the random phone calls, the movie nights, and he's happy and sad at the same time. Harley, another brother, gleefully tells her the time when Papa broke into his garage and gave him a device to use against bullies. More and more stories, of Papa at Stark Industries, of him being Iron Man, of him away from all the responsibilities. 

Morgan hoards these little crumbs of information like they are priceless artefacts. To her, they are. These are the things that will last longer in her memory, and she cherishes all the moments the world got to spend with her father. And if a part of her can't help but feel envious over the fact that all she got with him was four years - well, no one has to know about that. 

 _I'm his daughter_ , she wants to scream, angry and heartbroken, because all these people are telling her about these precious, intimate moments they had with her father, and she can give them nothing in return. She remembers being four years old and thinking that they had all the time in the world, only for that time to be snatched away by the whims of the universe. Morgan loves (loved) her father with every inch of her being, but sometimes it feels like he belonged more to the world than he did to her.

"Your father was a hero," everyone says. "He saved us all. He saved everyone."

A bitter, broken part of her wants to ask,  _then why didn't he save himself?_  

* * *

Her father is not there to see her go to school, shaking like a leaf and gripping her mother's hand tightly. The school uniform is stiff and itchy, but she is careful to keep her back straight and her head tilted up, determined to make her parents (both of them) proud. Her fingers tangle together as they rest on the pleated skirt, and her red-and-gold backpack feels strange on her back, but the day is arguably perfect. She smiles, laughs, makes friends, and gushes about her day to her mum at night over dinner. There's an empty chair next to them, an everlasting reminder that her papa is not here to listen. 

Her father is not there for any of her important moments. He does not pose dramatically with her in her graduation robes and cap. He does not walk her down the aisle and cry. She gives him a bouquet of roses on his birthday instead of a cheesy card and gag gift. When the world celebrates the day of Thanos's defeat every year, she cries in her bedroom and clutches a photo album to her chest. When she is feeling sad, he is not there in person to hug her and promise to make the cause of her sadness pay - instead, FRIDAY plays the hologram of him saying "I love you 3000" over and over again, until she's memorised the smile on his face and the love in his eyes.

She spends the Father's Days in a graveyard.

* * *

Morgan Stark grows up. Tony Stark is not there to see it.


End file.
